The Justice Department has started an inquiry into leaks to the press regarding a domestic surveillance program set forth by the NSA. The legality of this warrantless spying and its purpose for fighting the war on terror has been under much scrutiny from the press and Congress, primarily because President Bush acted without Congress’s consent, and more importantly, that of the American people.

However, have other presidents done what President Bush has done in times of war? Surely there is precedent for such wartime acts. One can look to Abraham Lincoln, who suspended Habeas Corpus and curbed the anti-war press during the length of the Civil War. Another more recent example would be Franklin Roosevelt’s use of internment camps for Japanese-Americans due to national fear that these citizens would be Japanese spies in a post-Pearl Harbor era. Many historians classify these actions as blotches on otherwise illustrious careers that must not be repeated.

Nevertheless, does history justify the president’s actions? Presidents in times of war feel that what they’re doing, while highly controversial, is an action in the best interest of the country. The president’s inherent powers suggest that he has the power to do what he’s doing. How can one possibly object to something as important as a presidential policy for counterterrorism; if Al Qaeda is having a phone conversation inside the U.S., wouldn’t you want to listen?

The argument set forth by many critics of the president is not why, but how the surveillance program was carried out. Lincoln broke the law, but he later went to Congress and go consent; this president didn’t even go to Congress. The mystical phrase of inherent powers, when left free floating and unclear, can give the president a blank check to do as he pleases, and that’s something we fought a revolution against.

The president must assume that Al Qaeda is not surprised to hear that the government has been trying to hone in on their activities in the U.S., so at least the obvious information should be disclosed to the American public. But the fact that we were kept in the dark about the NSA program has caused many people to think that in the deep, high technology mining of private emails and phone calls, countering terrorism may be dipping into our civil liberties in a way that’s unacceptable.

President Bush asserts that his actions are for the protection of the nation in a new kind of war, one apparently without a definite end. The president’s argument persuades in every way: terrorism produces a new kind of war with an ambiguous enemy, produces a different kind of intelligence challenge, and we have to take certain necessary steps to fight this ruthless enemy. Many Americans believe the war ended after Iraq; and either we’re at war or we’re not, or are we something in between?

To appease public outrage, the solution may seem as simple as establishing more openness and discussion about the threats facing us today. The NSA program is likely to intercept thousands of conversations of normal Americans with high washout rates (things that have nothing to do with terrorism). But if out of 5,000 conversations checked, the 5,001 reveals a terrorist plot to detonate a bomb inside the U.S. and stifle our way of life, wouldn’t it be worth it?